Barakhamba Heights.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Nobody walks on Barakhamba Road for sightseeing. But everyone should, especially after sundown when the many high-rises of the central Delhi avenue sparkle with night lights. This evening, Indra Prakash and Narain Manzil are gleaming like mineral-rich crystalline stalagmites. It is however the building between these two that is sheathed in a brilliant splatter of multitudinous lights. The scene could be a Jackson Pollack painting—see photo. (The building in the centre is Hindustan Times House that actually stands on the road behind, on Kasturba Gandhi Marg.)

Whatever, Barakhamba Road’s most iconic symbol has to be the Statesman House. 236 feet tall*, the sand-coloured tower crowns and consecrates almost every nook and corner of the adjacent Connaught Place shopping district. The 17-floor edifice shoots up like a standard high-rise, but acquires an eccentricity as it ascends into thin air, tapering into a sort of triangle. The impression is of a tiered cake, the topmost icing of which partly lopped off by a greedy child. The building is additionally distinguished for having a bus stop named after it.

At 264 feet, the leaf-shaped Gopal Das Bhawan stands across the road from Statesman. It came up in 1998. From a certain angle, the curvy edifice resembles the front bow of a gigantic ship. (The ship imagery inevitably summons to mind the famous Gateway Tower of Gurugram, which has a shape that at night resembles the sinking Titanic.)

The other Barakhamba notable is the New Delhi House. Designed as a simple block, it lends an understated officious elegance to Barakhamba Road. Sometimes late in the night, while most glass windows of New Delhi House are submerged in their customary darkness, a handful of windows continue to emit light, suggesting that some office-goers are still inside, working overtime.

If you wonder what existed on Barakhamba before the high-rises, walk straight to the building between Barakhamba Tower and Kanchenjunga. Here stands the area’s last surviving bungalow. Being in an advanced stage of dereliction, it looks uninhabited. Even so, this ghostly house is not as haunting as the nearby Barakhamba high-rise with 13 floors. That building stands at the turning to Maharaja Ranjeet Singh Marg. For decades, it has been lying forlorn—unfinished, unpainted, and totally deserted. At night, its desolation is more pronounced; its darkness being darker than the night’s surrounding darkness.

Lastly, a tip for the city’s high-rise enthusiasts. The most convenient and quick way to make a tour of Barakhamba Road’s perpendicular installations is by walking along a U-shaped route, enabling one to sequentially cover the following landmarks: Vijaya, Arunachal, Indra Prakash, Narain Manzil, Birla Tower, New Delhi House, Statesman House, Gopal Das Bhawan, Nirmal Tower, Ashoka Estate, Barakhamba Tower, Kanchenjunga, DCM building, and it all ending at the haunting tower of 13 floors.

*In contrast to the 236 feet of Statesman House, the Civic Center, which stands a short distance away from Barakhamba Road, is 367 feet high.

Hindustan Times House